Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2023-10-03 00:11
McDonalds Eater's recent thread about "...big masters" (here) touched on a topic that I've contemplated posting about lately, so I'll use his thread as a jump-off to my own.
The question is (basically): How much of what we think we know about a performers "sound" in general (including the "big masters" or folks who we personally look up to) can be chalked up to the hall? The mic placement? The recording technology used at the time? The recording technicians in the studio, etc.?
How much of what we perceive, could be chalked up to our own minds filling in the blanks...completing the picture so to speak? Perhaps none, but much like the drawing of sequential dots might look like a line to us - or a series of such dots might look like a transparent cube to us (or circle, or sphere) - our minds are habitual at filling in the missing parts based on our previous experiences.
Part of the reasoning behind my questioning pertains to the threads relating experiences where an instructor/player is described as having a "small" sound when up close, but a glorious hall-filling sound when in the audience at the hall. When I read this, it makes me ponder, "Then, what is considered a good sound?" I'd hate to hear people describe my sound as "small."
Being a follower of early jazz (nearly a mouldy fig), I've listened to lots of the earliest recordings - operas, pop tunes, eventually jazz, etc. Truly terrible recording technology. Lots missing. My ears are used to imagining the full tone of Johnny Dodds, Irving Fazola, etc. on the old recordings. Jane Green's pure voice, etc. But how accurate is that sound image to the original? Truth is, I won't ever know because my brain is filling in too much detail from the "dots" it hears. I can hear the musicians doing technically astounding things. I can hear how much their specific sound differs from those surrounding them...but what did they really sound like?
I've heard many, many excellent musicians in live settings, yet even with today's technology, it is the exception (rather than the rule) that the performer sounds the same on their recordings as they did in person (sans microphone). Because of having heard the original sound live - I can still hear through that difference and appreciate the overall sound as being "that" performers sound on the recording...but how much is my mind automatically filling in to make this happen? To reconcile the recorded sound to the sound I heard while listening live?
To me, technical things generally carry through to the recordings...to the halls, and seem to cross medium or venue...but tone and overall "sound" are modified by so many variables! It leaves me wondering if we're talking past one another at times when we discuss certain performers/players - when it comes to their "sound." Perhaps our minds each fill in the blanks differently - based on our own experiences.
Which leads somewhat back to McDonald Eater's post: How can we know what "sound" some of the greats from the past actually had? How much of our ideal is made up of bits and pieces automatically added to the sound picture by our own minds?
Are we admiring technical abilities and phrasing, etc., instead of sound?
Fuzzy
;^)>>>
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The Clarinet BBoard
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